Magda twisted her slim shoulders irritably when taken to task.
“I think I’m tired of being blamed for Kit Raynham’s idiocy,” she said, a note of resentment in her voice. “No one seems to consider my side of the question! I was merely nice to him in an ordinary sort of way, and there wasn’t the least need for him to have chucked up everything and rushed off to the other side of the world like that. I couldn’t help it!”
Lady Arabella made a gesture of despair.
“I don’t believe you could,” she acknowledged helplessly. “I’m really beginning to have a sneaking sympathy with poor Hugh for shelving the responsibility of having brought you into the world. But at least you might refrain from baby-snatching!” she added wrathfully.
Magda protested.
“Marraine! You’re abominable! Kit is four-and-twenty if he’s a day. And I’m barely twenty.”
“That has nothing whatever to do with it,” retorted Lady Arabella incisively. “Kit is a babe in arms, while you—you’re as old as Eve.” She paused. “Anyway, you’ve broken his heart and driven him to the ends of the earth.”
“Where he’ll probably paste together the pieces and offer the repaired article to someone else.”
Lady Arabella looked up sharply. Cynicism was usually far enough away from Magda. She was too full of the joy of life and of the genuine delight an artist finds in his art to have place for it. Egoist she might be, with the unthinking egotism of youth, irresponsible in her gay acceptance of the love and admiration showered on her, but there was nothing bitter or sour in her composition. Lady Arabella, seeking an explanation for the unwonted, cast her mind back on the events of the last few weeks—and smiled to herself.
“I suppose you know you’ve driven someone else out of England besides Kit Raynham?” she said.